


Transed His Own Gender

by Queerphysicist



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Big trans times, Bubby doesnt know what a gender is, M/M, Pre-Canon, Serious talk about gender ™, Time Skips, a little angsty, but good ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerphysicist/pseuds/Queerphysicist
Summary: Dr. Harold P. Coomer is trans, he's worked his whole academic career to make his body just how he wanted it. Now, at age 46, he finally has an opportunity with his work at Black Mesa to get bottom surgery. But his colleague and friend Dr Bubby, who doesn’t know anything about gender besides the strict hetero-normative and patriarchal culture of STEM, objects to the new and risky procedure while questioning Coomers desires to put his own safety at risk all for a silly gen-dar.
Relationships: Bubby & Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 97





	Transed His Own Gender

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I'm trans and gay and like a month ago I saw a post on Tumblr that joked that Coomer transed his own gender and that shit hit me different so I wrote this. A lot of it is honestly a real critique of what I've noticed from STEM culture wrapped up nice in a silly fandom package. Hope y'all enjoy! ;-)

It was both viciously empowering and crumbled him to the core. He had a power over his own body, rare for the here and now in this space and time. Harold had felt this way many times before, an advantage that should be a right. He could relieve his own suffering, but at what cost? The lingering thoughts would stick with him, latching on like a parasite, a cancer.   
A hand on his shoulder brought him back into his body, a body he’s worked so hard for. He turned back to see his colleague, stoic in expression. Dr Bubby was not good at expressing emotions in a conventional manner, but other characteristics helped to convey what his face could not. Right now the pressure he was applying with his hand on Coomer’s shoulder mixed with how he avoided eye contact told Coomer that Bubby was afraid. Bubby was afraid for Coomer.   
“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Bubby started.   
Coomer was about to reply, but Bubby’s own racing mind cut him off.   
“It’s a very experimental procedure you know, I was reading over the cybernetics reports-“  
“Please Bubby,” Coomer turned and looked up at him straight on, he saw worry in his friend’s eyes, “I am fully aware of what I’m doing, I have done just as much research as you.” He said these words with confidence. He didn’t want to hurt his friends feelings more, but sometimes Bubby’s ego got the best of him.   
Bubby took a step back from the other man, as if the eye contact burned him. Harold was one of the few people Bubby could look in the eyes without that feeling, but now it felt like the island of experience between them was distant. He averted his gaze back to a corner of the room, reconsidering his own words and constructing a sentence most logical for the situation. “I just don’t understand your desire to keep going forward with this, you’re already well respected enough.” ***  
____________________________________

This would be Coomer’s first procedure since he had met Bubby. The most recent before that was the operation on his chest, he had snagged that opportunity while working on his post doctorate. That was an experimental procedure at the time too, but Coomer’s endless tap of kindness and intelligence had been able to convince his friends in the medical department and their higher ups that this was an ethically sound decision. Even though Coomer himself never wished to study human anatomy, much preferring engineering and physics to biology, the circumstances of his life pushed him to learn more then he wanted to know. This study began the second he got to college, an unaware and afraid young man, he used his own body as test subject. Mixing concoctions that transformed his body and mind. By the time he was applying for his masters, he was a new man. All the insecurity and anxiousness of his younger years behind him, he now shone like the star he was. From there he made incremental and bolder steps in the process of his transition; first with the top surgery as mentioned before, and now, at the age of 46, he was arranging what would hopefully be his final procedure.   
Black Mesa did a lot of things, and apparently mechanical prosthetics was now one of them. The new cybernetics department had already made wondrous strides in terms of arms and legs, restoring ability to those in their ranks that needed it. These semi-mechanical, semi-flesh prosthetics fascinated Dr. Coomer to no end. About 8 months ago he had started wandering into the department more often. Finding himself asking passing questions to colleagues, asking questions from a genuine place in the heart. Dr. Coomer was open to talk about his experiences as a trans man, but a majority of his peers were always too uncomfortable to ask. They saw it as an oddity within a good man, he saw it as something that helped make him the good man he was today. The gap in that understanding stung Coomer sometimes, and the feeling of isolation sometimes crept up on him. But his smile and the passion for his studies often helped to bring him away from that space. It was about 2 months ago when he picked out a particular team within the cybernetics department, and started to have more serious conversations with them. From a scientific perspective, everyone involved was enthralled by the prospect. Combine that with Coomer's consistent fascination, confidence, and consent, they were fast approaching a place where action could be taken.   
_____________________________________

Bubby had noticed his friend's increased absence from their own department. Missing from collaboration meetings, not in his office or nearest break room for their usual chit chat. Coomer was an unlikely but much appreciated friend to Bubby. They had met about 10 years prior, when Bubby was nearly done the process of being titled 'a successful prototype'. Coomer was an unexpected ray of sunshine in Bubby's life. Showing him a kindness and understanding Bubby never had the luxury to live with. Being regarded as a test subject and experiment your whole life does that to you.   
____________________________________

Bubby didn't know what being trans meant when Coomer first brought it up with him. Bubby, in reality, didn't even know what gender meant. He had a vague grasp on the fact that gender existed. The knowledge tubes his creators attached to him all those years ago mostly skipped out on all topics of liberal arts, humanity, sociology, etc, except for the most minimum required for him to be a somewhat functioning social life form. But what Dr Bubby lacked in those nuanced interactions and social rules, he well made up for in his ability to observe and form logical conclusions (according to his own account).   
He was aware of the fact that some people were referred to differently. Out of Black Mesas staff, a small minority were referred to as ‘she’. This group had a tendency to dress different from the rest of the staff, occasionally donning skirts and dresses, and varying from person to person on pigment applied to the face. Bubby viewed these people as his equal (or more so equally below him as the rest of his male co-workers, as he was still an egotistical jerk), but he couldn’t help but notice the trends surrounding this group.  
Bubby heard the back handed remarks, the passing jokes, the tone of superiority made by some of his male colleagues about the fairer sex. He saw the anxiety in his female colleagues when this attitude approached them. He noted the equal distribution of men to women in the ranks of visiting grad students and post docs, yet the stark lack of women in actual professional roles at Black Mesa. He saw the complacency in nearly all of his male colleagues regarding the generally accepted treatment words the ‘fairer sex’. Nearly all his male colleagues.   
Coomer and Bubby had been working together for a few years, and a friendship (or the closest thing to that someone could get to with Bubby) had started to really solidify. They were on lunch together, discussing the published panels from a recent convention on nuclear physics. Bubby was particularly fascinated in some newly publish findings on strange Beta decay experiments. He excitedly postulated the possibilities the results could mean for the future of the strong nuclear force. Dr Coomer was as supportive and thoughtful towards his friend as ever, but something else seemed to be occupying his thoughts.   
“Did you read over the notes from the panel on gender issues in STEM?” Dr. Coomer eventually interrupted when his lingering thoughts became too present.   
This caught Bubby off guard, but he quickly caught up with his colleagues present state of mind, “I didn’t because I saw it as trivial. I mean, it was a convention on nuclear physics, why waste time with trivial matters of progressing social etiquette?”  
Coomer furrowed his brow and Bubby realized he had perhaps chosen the wrong words, “Well Professor, if you had spent the time to read, you’d realize it was barely focusing on Progressing social etiquette at all. The man they chose to lead the panel was as backwards thinking about women’s role in science as the Pythagoreans were about irrational numbers.”  
Bubby shuffled in his chair with slight discomfort, he was never put up to the task of discussing matters like this, “Ah, yes. Well that is a shame. Pretty fucked up too… But I’m sure women will find a way to still contribute valuable findings.”  
“It’s difficult enough already, I’m sick of this two steps forwards one step back mentality.” Coomer was submerged in his own thoughts, barely acknowledging Bubby’s weak response. “Things have barely changed since my undergrad days. I’m lucky I managed to survive the few years I did in academia being perceived as a woman.”   
Bubby processed this as neatly and quickly as he could. Gender could be changed.   
____________________________________

***“What do you mean by respect, Professor?” Dr. Coomer asked, cooling his own emotions.  
“You know what I mean, you’re already perceived as a man! You’re no longer are seen as a woman and you’re no longer discriminated against. I admire that you’ve figured out a way to jump the backwards system but-“ he was cut off by Coomer.   
“Bubby,” Coomer looked at his friend, trying to fathom what the hell had gone wrong in that ‘perfect’ brain of his. He finally gathered his thoughts, “I’m not, trans- because I wanted to be respected. I’m trans because I just am.”  
Bubby ruminated on his colleagues response, “Well fine, if not for the respect then it’s simply conformity! It makes complete sense Harold, science can be a real dog eat dog world. Anything that makes you separate from the norm is just a weight to be lifted.”  
“What the actual hell are you talking about professor” a tone of anger and disappointment filled Coomer’s voice, “This is some really problematic thinking you know.”   
Bubby gave a huff and deepened his gaze to the corner of the room, he mulled over his thoughts and tried to choose his words carefully. As much as he hated to admit it, he really knew very little about gender, but his drive to maintain the upper hand kept him from admitting that. He decided drawing from personal experience was the most logical argument to make, “I mean, that’s why I’m a man. I guess I just always assumed it was the same for you.”  
Coomer’s look of annoyance turned to one of intrigue, it was rare for Bubby to share his more personal thoughts and feelings. Coomer took this opportunity to prod his colleague, “Is that so Dr Bubby?”, he knew how to get Bubby in a more comfortable mindset, “Then tell me, do you feel like a man?”.  
“What the fuck is that suppose to mean?” Bubby sneered, “I don’t feel like a man, I just present like one. What the hell does feeling have to do with gender?”  
Coomer chuckled a little, realizing his friend wasn’t a complete bigot, just an idiot. “I say Dr. Bubby, it looks like your creators really didn’t connect any gender tubes to that brain of yours. Did they tell you the you were a man?”  
Bubby was feeling increasingly exposed and embarrassed but kept his composure. “Those bastards didn’t tell me anything! At least not directly. I popped out of the tube and they just started calling me ‘he’ and I just rolled with it. I thought that happened to everyone! Until I met you,” Bubby finally returned his gaze to Coomer. Slight tones of confusion, fear, and anger made up his expression, “I could tell that it sucked to be a woman, regardless of their extra freedom of expression with clothes and things like that. So it made sense to me that you changed your presentation to avoid the ridicule.”   
Coomer enjoyed pressing Bubby’s ‘think deeply about something other than science’ button, but refrained and decided to give some explanation. “Bubby, that really isn’t how gender works in the slightest! I mean for some people they’re content with what ever gender they were assigned at birth, but even then they have some sort of emotional attachment or sense of that gender. And for others, like me, they feel a stronger connection to some other gender and they make what ever adjustments feels right for them. With everyone it can be pretty fluid throughout their lifetimes, but it’s all very personal. What gender do you feel Bubby?”  
“I don’t feel like any fucking gender! I feel like a scientist, can’t I just be that?” Bubby tapped his foot and rolled the hem of his lab coat between his fingers. He was glad he was talking about this with Harold, but it still felt awkward as hell.   
“Of course you can Dr. Bubby!” Coomer beamed at his colleagues honesty, “Though I don’t think you could be considered trans though, you were assigned Scientist at Birth™.” Cooper laughed at his own joke, which in turn made Bubby relax and smile a bit himself. Coomer placed a hand on Bubby’s sholder, “Ah, but in all seriousness. It’s completely valid to not be a man or a woman. There are plenty of people like that! And it’s also ok to not have any gender at all! You can feel and express yourself however you want to Bubby, and at least I’ll be here to fully support you. I hope you’re willing to do the same for me.”  
Bubby looked to the side in a sheepish but calmer way, “Well, of course Harold. I guess I didn’t fully understand how much this meant to you. I’m, um, sorry for speaking over you about this.”  
A sorry from Bubby was a rare commodity. “It’s alright. You were worried about my well being and I’m grateful for that! You were miss informed and kind of stupid, but I’m glad you were willing to open up and have an honest conversation with me.”   
Bubby smiled and his gaze was finally able to align with Coomer’s again, the feeling of safety retuned and his anxieties took a back seat. “Well, if it’s alright with you, I’d love to help you and the cybernetics department in your research and development. Learn more about the cutting edge of gender confirming surgery and whatnot.”  
Coomer beamed at the support, “Ah! I’d be happy to include you in Project Black Mesa Super Shlong 3000! I can grab some of the blueprints we’ve been working on right now!”   
Coomer left Bubby’s office in an excited hurry and would return shortly. In that time Bubby reflected on the conversation. Not needing to be a man or a woman? Not needing any gender at all? That sounded really nice to Bubby. He still had a lot to learn about life outside of Black Mesa and the apparently fluid rules of gender, but he was glad he Coomer there to fill in the gaps.


End file.
